More possible ghosts!
It's fun with a capital F that there are ghosts that can rip your Dwarf's limbs off and scare them to death, but why not have some additional benefit to going all out in memorializing Dwarves? This could be expanded when funerals are in, but if a Dwarf is buried in an elaborate tomb or a very expensive/enjoyed coffin for their station they should be able to manifest in ways that aren't harmful to Dwarves from time to time.
Neutral effects could be things like artifact possessions, since that's why there's space for more active souls anyway, or maybe if a ghost has an descendant in the fort they show up and talk to them once and that Dwarf has a change of life goal, or attitude, just some kind of little thing. These shouldn't happen too often, even the artifact ones could overdo it since they don't give the Dwarf legendary skill when they're possessed. Maybe only one neutral ghost at a time, and they'll vanish if an angry ghost shows up and knocks them out or something. Just a neat little addition to religion and culture that famous historical figures have a chance to appear and instill wisdom.
Good ghosts on the other hand should be the result of Dwarven personality facets or a really fantastic burial, and when they appear they should do something beneficial for the fort. This still shouldn't be very often, or there should be a way to change the timer for ghost appearances in a world so some of them can be particularly ghostly. When a legendary craftsdwarf has a particularly moving funeral and is buried in her favorite material with pictures of her favorite animal on it in her favorite gem, she might periodically pop up rarely and inspire a Dwarf to a different kind of artifact mood, or maybe just go to a workshop that is in use and the next few things to be made are guaranteed masterpiece, or skill increase goes up. Still something kind of small so they aren't a whole new strange mood onto themselves. Ghostly animal trainers could slightly increase knowledge of a species (which I think used to be a bug along with ghost fishing, which might be a bit of a waste unless legendary ghost fisherdwarves result in bizarre otherwordly catches with a lot of value), ghostly miners could speed mining. Or any of them could appear and talk to their descendants, leading those Dwarves to have some kind of profound life realization and just doing those cool things on a story level, or learning more in a skill or something.
Dead Dwarves that have been properly honored with good burials and religious rituals, or whatever they end up wanting when those arcs are done, should also help to defend the fort from sieges occasionally. Basically, building destroyers that destroy a coffin should face the wrath of the murderous ghost instead of your Dwarves, and invaders that defile a tomb should be targeted by the other forms of ghostly abuse your Dwarves normally get exclusively. We'll need improved sieges before this isn't just overkill, but it would be nice once we get some real threats if they decide to wreck a Dwarven crypt if maybe a ghost appears and defends the fort with some paralysis or a terrifying howl. Maybe they'll only go after the specific creature that destroyed their coffin, or maybe they'll cut down a bunch of gobs on the way to a troll, or maybe once they're out they stick around and wreck havoc for just some period of time, and when they come back again they'll just be generally murderous unless they've been reburied and something is done to un-defile a space. Cleaning it or doing a religious ritual to restore the ghost to its proper protector state. Dead military ghosts should deal with tomb invaders pretty intensely, but it'd be nice if after doing enough damage to a place particularly blasphemous vandals could rouse all the fort's dead citizens and they'd scare the whole army off.
Once laws are in, maybe civs will develop ethics based on survive bad experiences with ghosts. Goblins might not be respectful of tombs, but they'll be wary around them. Or they'll become superstitious about Dwarven tombs and maybe it impacts morale traveling through them. As long as there's a chance for Dwarves to defile tombs somehow I don't think it would be overpowering to rarely have ghosts appearing to attack a few members of a large siege force, or scaring a lot of them. Defiline which would need to be worked out but should be possible if they stab a goblin through into a coffin, or knock a coffin over once those kinds of things are in the game, or violate a religious principal maybe. Even as ghosts become more useful they should still have risks so coffins won't end up lining every fort entrance suddenly or have people melting all their best soldiers for eternal guardians.
Of course, there's not really a reason for a religious temple not to specifically create eternal guardians of its best paladins, if that's the religion. So ghostliness sliders that impact how often things like that raise up in game might still be nice.
Author
Topic: Good and neutral ghosts (Read 895 times)